


pitch black streets

by Pond_Melody



Category: Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: AU for S01E04, Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Tragedy, Unrequited Peter/Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 01:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3230816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pond_Melody/pseuds/Pond_Melody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Peter's world falls apart, Mary Jane is there to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pitch black streets

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for being rusty; I haven't written any fic in a few years.
> 
> Norman may come off as slightly OOC here, but I think that USM Norman is the only version of him that actually loves his son and I wanted to highlight that.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Ultimate Spider Man. I don't own any of Fall Out Boy's material, either, which is where the title of this fic was taken from

“I can't hold on,” Harry gasped, and MJ knew that he would sound apologetic if he wasn't so absolutely petrified. He tried to tighten his grip on the railing, but his hands had already slipped and he was trying not to look down. He squeezed his eyes shut as MJ reached for him, her fingertips brushing against his sweater for a only split-second before she was grasping at air, and Harry was falling.

“Harry!” She screamed. She was still reaching for him, which she knew was kind of silly somewhere in the back of her mind, but she couldn't bring herself to move from her spot because _that was Harry_ and he slipped through her fingers. She couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. All she knew is that she was half a second too slow, and Harry was falling.

...

She didn't actually see him hit the ground—she didn't stick around to watch. Instead, before she could register what had actually just happened, MJ was inside Oscorp, flying down the stairs two at a time.

_Harry._

She was almost impressed with herself, actually—before she realized what was happening, she was down ten floors. She never knew she could move that fast. It occurred to her that, at the top of a one hundred story building, the elevator might have been a better idea. She almost wished she'd thought of it first, because she was functioning on autopilot and she needed to keep moving. If she kept moving, maybe, just maybe, Harry would be okay. She couldn't consider an alternative, not yet—if she did, she knew that she would throw up right there in the stairwell. Instead, she silently willed Harry to somehow not hit the ground, her feet pounding the the stairs as she reached the seventy-eighth floor.

MJ gave up on the stairs sometime around reaching the sixtieth floor. She couldn't breathe, and her knees felt like they might give out, so she hit the elevator button a few times and waited. Finally, finally, she reached the ground floor. She stumbled out of the elevator, out of the building and onto the street. A crowd had gathered outside, so she didn't see Harry right away. She pushed her way through the mass of people, silent except for the occasional “excuse me.” Some of them had their eyes glued to the top of the building; others were more interested at whatever is in the center of all of it.

She knew exactly what it was they were gathered around. She just couldn't bring herself to acknowledge it yet.

She made her away to the middle of the crowd, and her heart dropped to her shoes. Norman Osborn was on his knees in a puddle of blood, cradling his son's broken body in his arms.

MJ froze in her spot; she needed to see him with her own eyes, but she didn't want to remember him that way. From where she stood, she could see Norman's grief-stricken features as he held Harry close to his chest. She inched towards them. Inches gradually turned into steps. When she dropped to her knees beside them, Norman's face was buried in Harry's shoulder, his own shoulders shaking with sobs.

When MJ had last seen Harry, his face was scrunched in panic. Up close, she could see that his face had relaxed into a neutral expression. His clothes and hair were matted to his skin with blood. Harry had always been fair-skinned, but now he almost looked chalky. He looked much smaller in Norman's arms than she had ever remembered him being, and she found herself having to look away with that particular realization.

Police sirens wailed in the distance.

Her chest tightened. She wanted to say something, anything, but there was a lump in her throat and she was afraid that if she opened her mouth, the tears would start and they wouldn't stop. She would let herself fall apart later; for now, she needed to hold it together.

“I'm sorry, Harry,” she managed in a whisper. “I'm _so_ sorry.” Norman didn't acknowledge her presence, at least not verbally. She hadn't really expected him to. In fact, she was pretty sure that he didn't even know she was there.

For the first time that night, she found herself wondering where the hell Peter was

…

Harry was pronounced dead on arrival.

It turned out that Norman had been aware of her presence. He approached her in the emergency room later, with a pale face and bloodshot eyes. He'd wanted to thank her for being such a good friend to his son, and to assure her that Harry hadn't been in pain when he died.

“Peter, it's...uh, it's MJ. You really should start picking up your phone,” she chuckled. “Just...call me back. Please,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word. She ended the call, shoved her phone into her pocket, and buried her face in her hands. In all honesty, she didn't know why she was there. The harsh lights of the emergency room were giving her a headache, and Harry wasn't even in the emergency room anymore. She told herself that she stayed because that's where she told Peter to find her, but that was almost two hours and five voice mail messages ago. She felt a pang in her stomach when she realized that she hadn't spoken to Peter since the party and _oh god did he even make it out of the building?_

She'd been breathing deeply and trying not to focus on what-ifs for about ten minutes when Peter burst through the emergency room doors. “Mary Jane! Are you okay? What—,”

“Harry,” she said numbly, cutting him off.

“What about Harry?” He asked.

She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out. Her vision swam for a second, and she couldn't hold her tears back anymore. Squeezing her eyes shut, she covered her mouth with her hands and tried to stay upright. Peter crouched in front of her, resting his hands on her forearms. “MJ,” he spoke slowly. “Where is Harry?”

“He—he—,” she tried.

Peter tried to ignore the nausea in his gut as stood up and pulled her into a tight hug. “Hey, it's okay. It's okay,” he murmured, rubbing circles on her back. Her hands were shaking. Her face was flushed and her eyes were swollen, but after a minute, she seemed to have calmed down enough to answer him. He tried again. “Mary Jane, listen to me. You need to tell me where Harry is, okay?”

“Gone,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

The nausea that had settled in Peter's stomach quickly turned to ice. “Gone. Gone? Where?”

“Peter.” She pulled away from the hug and looked him in the eye. Deep breath. “Peter, Harry is dead.”

Peter stared blankly back at her. “No,” he finally said, shaking his head. She nodded miserably.

“He lost his footing on the fire escape and fell. He—Mr. Osborn, he talked to me, and Harry was pronounced dead on arrival.”

He backed away from her. “No, he can't be. He's only seventeen. He can't be.”

“Peter, I—"

" _No,"_ he said, crossing his arms.

"I _saw_ him, Peter!" Her words came out a little louder and lot more harshly than she intended them to be, but that didn't matter right now.

“Then you must've seen wrong!” He snapped, and _oh god hadn't meant to snap at her_ and now she was crying again. “'Scuse me,” he mumbled, walking away from her and finding a restroom.

_I just need a minute, that's all_ , he thought, pushing open the door of an empty stall and sinking to his knees. He emptied his stomach contents into the toilet and flushed, waiting for the heaving to stop. Harry was dead. Harry was _dead_. Harry had died angry with him. He died thinking that Peter had ditched him for cooler new friends. He'd never gotten to make things right, to tell Harry how important he was to him. Peter had sworn to himself that he'd keep Harry safe no matter what, and...he'd failed him. What if he died thinking that he hadn't mattered to Peter at all? He felt bile rising to his throat at that thought and leaned over the toilet again.

When he thought he was finished throwing up, Peter washed his hands and splashed cold water on his face. In the waiting room, MJ was sitting in the same chair that she'd been in when Peter arrived. He sat down next to her. “I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm sorry,” he said sincerely. She didn't say anything back. She didn't have to. Instead, she turned to face him and pulled him into an awkward hug.

“You said you saw him,” he mumbled after a few moments of silence. “After he...”

Beat. “Yeah,” she replied. “Do you think he suffered?” He asked in a small voice.

“No,” she said, cupping one hand against the back of his head, and she believed it. “It happened pretty quickly.” For her, it seemed to happen in slow motion and all at once at the same. She knew, though, that Harry hadn't experienced it the way she had, and she was grateful for that.

Another moment of silence, and then—

“I loved him, MJ. I never told him.” The words were muffled against her jacket but she heard them perfectly and smirked in response. She'd always known.

“I never thought I'd hear you admit it,” she said, holding him tighter. "Do you want to see his body?" She asked softly.

"Um—I—I don't—," he stammered. She waited patiently. He took a deep breath and tried again.

"Yes," he decided finally. "Yes. In a minute. I need a minute." MJ made a silent decision not to let Peter grieve alone. She couldn't. The truth was that she needed him as much as he needed her, and they both knew it.

They stayed like that for a while.


End file.
